


Quoth the Raven

by OlegGunnarsson



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Everything Is Canon, Imagine your OTP, It's in here somewhere, Multi, Multiple Universes Colliding, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Ravens, The Citadel, The Isle of Ravens
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-30 17:41:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12113880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OlegGunnarsson/pseuds/OlegGunnarsson
Summary: The Citadel sends its ravens to all corners of the seven kingdoms. Those ravens return with news and information - records and reports, facts and rumors. The entire enterprise relies on the ability of these small birds to find their way home.What if they found their way to the wrong home?





	1. The Tower

Samwell Tarly lifted the book from the floor and considered it. It was Maester Andrei's  _An Account of the Dragon Species in the Days of Antiquity: The Beasts that Shook the World._ The fact that this book, of all the books in his study, was the last to be placed on its shelf? The coincidence brought a smile and a chuckle. 

He was not in the habit of storing his prized tomes on the floor - quite the opposite. But the morning's tremors had shaken the Citadel to its core. Books had fallen from shelves, papers were dislodged from desks. One of the Maesters had reported that some of the windows in the great hall had even shattered. At first, some of the more excitable youths thought the Citadel had come under attack, but the Maesters had reassured them. Besides, what navy would shake the ground once and stop? 

No, they said, this had just been an earthquake, they said. The Citadel had stood for time immemorial, and it would outlast Masters not yet born. Then the youths would be given the usual lecture about skepticism and sent to attend the cleanup. 

Sam's office had been spared most of the damage; only a few dozen books had fallen. Truth be told, Sam had not even bothered to clean them immediately - he had finished his reading first. 

With this last work in its place, Sam took a step back and surveyed his office. It wasn't the largest, as such spaces went, but it was his. He was comfortable here, and it felt good to have earned his place. The fact that he had a door to keep out the noise (and the novices) was but another benefit. 

As the door opened and a novice rushed in, Sam turned.  _Of course, it doesn't matter how nice the door is if no one knocks,_ he thought to himself. 

The boy was young, he saw, and had not yet forged a link of his own. He was also out of breath, barely able to stammer out his words. 

"Sam!" he finally managed. "It's the ravens..." 

Sam kept his smile as he walked over to the boy. "Relax, I'm sure they felt the tremor as well. Of course they'll be agitated, that's to be expected." Now he placed a hand on the lad's shoulder. "If you're worried, perhaps you could ask the Archmaester if he requires your assistance?" 

The boy shook his head, still breathing heavily.  _Did he run all the way from the Isle of Ravens?_ wondered Sam. 

"I've been there, it's... " Now the boy looked Sam in the eyes, and Sam could see the genuine fear. "You must come see. The Archmaester requested you specifically." 

The last time Sam had seen someone with that look in his eyes, he had been north of the Wall. And the threat that day had been a lot worse than a little tremor. Whatever this boy saw, he was truly frightened.  _What is this?_ thought Sam.

Shaking his head, Sam indicated his door. "We'd best be going, then. Best not to keep the Archmaester waiting." 

 

\-----

 

As they approached the Isle of Ravens, the home of all the citadel's trained messengers, Sam could already hear the din. Normally quiet, the ravens were crying out and making quite a din. 

 _Perhaps I spoke hastily,_ thought Sam. Then, to his companion, "The tremor was at least 4 hours ago. Why would the ravens still be upset? Surely they should have calmed by now." 

The boy turned to reply, but did not slow his brisk pace. "The ravens we had in house, they gave us a bit of trouble, but within minutes they were back to their rest. Today was to be a slow day, as far as outgoing traffic. More of our ravens than usual are out." He turned back to the great door up ahead, continuing. "Actually, we expected quite a few of our ravens to return home in the next few days, but..." 

They reached the door as his voice trailed off. The din was louder now, to the point that Sam actually raised his voice a little. "But what, lad?" 

The boy gave Sam that frightened look again, then opened the doors. Sam slowly entered the Rookery, and understood. 

The Citadel's rookery had been rebuilt into a single tall space, with cages and enclosures going up five levels. These cages were punctuated by workspaces for writing and receiving messages, areas for tending to injured or ailing ravens, and storage for feed and straw and other supplies. A hallway opposite the entrance led to the Archmaester's office, as well as the balcony that opened onto the harbor. From that balcony, the Citadel sent messages to every castle and keep. Outside, the roof of the structure was ringed with a stone ledge that collected rain - to give the incoming ravens water after their journeys. Then the ravens would enter the tower and their messages could be retrieved. If all of the Citadel's ravens were home at the same time, there would be hundreds of ravens to be fed and cared for. In reality, maybe four in ten were home at any one time - but even that number took a dozen maesters and novices to manage. 

Now Sam knew why the ravens had been so loud. There were easily over two thousand ravens filling the room. Even in the cavernous space, the room felt full to overflowing. 

As he watched, a novice opened an enclosure and tried to coax a pair of ravens in - only to see three other ravens escape into the room. Another novice sat at a table in the center of the room, frantically making a list. Next to him was a stack of messages so high it threatened to topple. Sam approached, and saw that the list just catalogued the origin of each message and the sending maester's name. Nothing whatsoever about the content. 

 _What the hell is going on?_  

"About time you got here," Sam heard over the noise. Turning, he saw Archmaester Gormon enter the room from his office. Gormon had probably forgotten more about the use of ravens to connect the far flung corners of the world to the Citadel than most maesters would ever know. When his predecessor had become too old to manage the task, Gormon had been the obvious choice. In the time since, that choice had proven the correct one. Any who sought to add the black iron link of Ravenry to their chain had to be judged by Gormon, and his tests were not for the unprepared. 

Sam walked over to the Archmaester, and waved his hand over his head. "What happened? Did we train more ravens overnight?" 

"Honestly, we were hoping you could tell us." Gormon looked Sam over carefully, almost like he was being judged by a teacher. Sam saw none of the novice's fear in this man's demeanor. As he watched, the old man seemed to make up his mind about something. "But you don't know, do you?"

Sam realized that, for a moment, Gormon had thought him responsible for this. Eyebrows raised, Sam tried to keep his voice light and friendly.

"You know me, Archmaester - you know I have as little involvement with the ravens as possible." Sam again indicated the clamor above them. "And if you are overwhelmed by the situation, consider well how I would handle it. You've spent a lifetime in this tower. I, well... if I've spent a week here in my time at the Citadel, it would shock me." 

Nodding toward Gormon's office, Sam kept as much of his smile on as he could. "Why don't we sit down and figure out what we have and what we don't? That might give us a clue." 

The Archmaester sighed, still looking Sam over. "There are somethings you need to see first, though." He walked to the hallway, past his office door and toward the balcony. "Come." 

Sam followed, and was surprised when the noise of the ravens did not diminish. Of course, when he joined the Archmaester outside, he saw why. 

Whereas there might be two thousand ravens in the tower, out here there were twice that number - so many that they just couldn't fit. A great many were just circling the tower, wondering what the hell to do with themselves. Some had landed on the tower and balcony, others had found places on the rooftops of the Citadel itself. As Sam looked out over Oldtown, he could not see a building that lacked for ravens. 

"That's the first thing." Gormon said, as he walked to join Sam at the edge of the balcony. "We currently have one thousand three hundred and eighty-nine ravens in our flock, at home and outbound. We have another one hundred and ninety-two at various stages of growth or training, and that includes seven fresh-hatched." He waved a hand at the ravens before them. "Who knows how many we have now."

Sam was still awed by the sight, but had to know. "If you had to guess, though?" 

A huff. "I am an Archmaester of the Citadel. I do not 'guess', Samwell. As you well know." Then, an exasperated sigh. "But if one were to attempt an estimate, they could count past four thousands and still not exhaust our supply."  

"And the tower can house...?"

Another sigh. "At present, fifteen hundreds. None of this counts the white ravens, below. But fortunately, we've received none of those today."

 _There's more to this, surely._ "You said this was the first thing."

"Yes, I did." Gormon nodded to the novice, who approached. Samwell saw him carry one of the small cages with him. This cage, it seemed, held four ravens. Setting the cage on the ledge, Gormon looked to Sam. "I know your studies of ravencraft were... perfunctory, shall we say? But see here, look at these ravens and tell me which one of the four is ours." 

Sam looked closely at the ravens. On the nearest of the four, Sam saw an old injury on its left wing, as if an arrow had caught it in flight. The feathers were irregular in just that spot, as if it had healed oddly.  _Clearly it healed, or else it wouldn't be here._ Sam thought. He turned the cage and looked at another of the ravens... and gasped. His view of the third and fourth ravens only confirmed what he had seen. 

All four ravens were identical. Each was the same size, and each had the exact same wound on the exact same wing that had healed in the exact same odd way. 

Sam took the cage in his hands, and gave it back to the novice. Boy and cage went back into the tower, and Sam realized he was following. When they entered, Gormon reached past him and opened his door. Sam didn't even think about the propriety of preceding his host into the man's own office, but he was still thinking over what he had seen. Gormon thought nothing of it - for he knew what his reaction had been when ravens began arriving.

Sam sat heavily in one of the chairs beside the hearth. Gormon leaned against his desk, watching Sam carefully. On the wall behind him was a replica of the Black Iron Mask.

"What message did that raven carry?" Sam asked, thoughtfully.

Gormon reached over to his desk and took a small stack of papers. "We actually have six of that raven, Sam - but it isn't the only raven who suddenly found itself surrounded by brothers this morning." Handing the messages to Sam, Gormon continued. "This particular raven flies to and from my lord nephew, Mace Tyrell, at Highgarden." 

 _Lord Mace Tyrell, of House Tyrell, Lord of Highgarden, Defender of the Marches, High Marshal of the Reach, and Warden of the South, announces with great joy the birth of his grandson, Prince Tywin Baratheon, first of his name, to King Joffery Baratheon, first of his name, and his lady wife the Rose Queen, Margaery Baratheon of House Tyrell..._ Sam looked up at Gormon. "This can't be real. This message is dated two weeks ago." 

Smiling down at Sam, Gormon again nodded to the messages. "Go on, read the next one." Not knowing what to expect, or what Gormon could be smiling about, Sam moved to the next slip of parchment.

_Lord Mace Tyrell, of House Tyrell, Lord of Highgarden, Defender of the Marches, High Marshal of the Reach, and Warden of the South, announces with great joy the birth of his granddaughter, the Princess Joanna Baratheon, first of her name, to King Joffery Baratheon, first of his name, and his lady wife the Rose Queen, Margaery Baratheon of House Tyrell..._

Sam shook his head, saying nothing. 

"Remarkable indeed, that. A dead queen gives birth to the son of a dead king who died during their wedding feast, does so long after her own death, and then finds the time to give birth to a daughter as well." Gormon shook his head, chuckling. "My word, what did she do with the rest of the day? Just lay about?" 

 _This isn't funny,_ thought Sam.  _Someone went to a lot of trouble to play a trick on the Citadel._  

Seeing Sam's features cloud, Gormon pointed to the messages. "Let's find out, shall we?" Sam removed the next message from the pile, and read it out loud. 

"Lord Willas Tyrell, of House Tyrell, Lord of Highgarden, Defender of the Marches, Lord Paramount of the Reach, and Warden of the South, and his wife, the Lady Sansa Tyrell, announce with great joy the birth of their twin daughters Catelyn and that's bloody well enough." Sam sets the message down and looks at Gormon. "What the hell is this?" 

Gormon looks at Sam thoughtfully, then shrugs. "We have no idea. After the tremor this morning, ravens began landing and entering the tower as normal. As the first few trickled in, the novices found themselves with a conundrum, for some of the ravens they had processed were already sitting in their cages. We were not just receiving extra ravens, we were receiving the same raven more than once." Indicating the messages in Sam's lap, Gormon contitinued. "The messages were all from the same source, or at least the same maester, and all dated exactly the same." 

"That raven brought birth announcements from dead parents about dead children. The fourth message there is from Mace Tyrell, announcing the passing of his lady wife. The fifth was Prince Oberyn Martell of Dorne, Warden of the South, naming a regent for the conquered land of Highgarden, in the name of Queen Danaerys Targaryen, first of her name, and so on."

Sam shuffled the papers, found the message. "I was unaware that your ancestral home had been conquered, Archmaester." 

"As was I, Sam. And as were the Tyrells, if any of the other messages are to be believed. Have a look at that last message, though." 

Sam took the bottom slip of parchment. "During the month past, Maester Tomas reports the following at Highgarden: 17 minor injuries and 5 illnesses were treated, including the consumptive sickness that struck Septa Camillia in the previous month, and to which she ultimately succumbed on the 17th evening. This Maester recorded no marriages, and continued his studies as per his previous. No further report." Sam looked at Gorman. 

"Utterly routine! But the date matches births and deaths and lands conquered by dead men and you see my concern." 

Samwell nodded, looking back to the parchment. Comparing the messages, the steady hand of Maester Tomas could be seen in every letter, every word. The dates were all in the same place, and all identical. There could be no doubt - the same man wrote each parchment. But why?

"So the question I have," Samwell asked as he turned to the master of the rookery, "is this: Why am I here? Surely there are other maesters more capable of addressing this crisis?" 

Gormon smiled, and Samwell felt a chill - for Gormon's smile was the kindest one he had ever shown to Sam, and the Archmaester was not known for his kindness. He had the look of a man speaking softly to one of his ravens, an injured bird about to be given its rest. 

"Sam, this message came from Dragonstone. It speaks for itself. And it - and three others like it, from elsewhere in Westeros - are why we summoned you." Gormon handed the small parchment over. 

Looking down, he ignored the words, for the moment, and considered the writing itself, and at the date. This message was written three weeks ago, he saw. He read aloud.

"It is my honor to send the following report: Her Grace Danyerys Stormborn, of House Targaryen, first of her name, Lady of Dragonstone, Queen of Mereen, Shield of Dragon's Bay, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Unburnt, the Breaker of Chains, agreed on this date to a parley with the Iron Throne. The parley will take place in two month's time, at an encampment on the Roseroad, a day's march south and west of King's Landing. It is the Queen's hope that the parley will result in a treaty ending hostilities between House Targaryen and the throne, bringing peace to Westeros once more." Now Samwell drew in a sharp breath, before continuing. 

"This Maester will meet Grand Maester Luwin at King's Landing to complete arrangements for the parley. It is my belief that her grace will sign any reasonable treaty, given the course of the war and the disposition of her forces. Maester Luwin, in a raven sent to Dragonstone from the throne, seems to share my assessment. He believes, as I do, that King Robb Stark will offer generous terms to end the conflict." Samwell paused, and when he finished the message his voice was a whisper. For the handwriting he read was his own. 

"So reports Maester Samwell of Dragonstone." 

 


	2. A Conspiracy of Samwells

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Citadel begins to grapple with the scope of the crisis, as Samwell seeks answers of his own.

After breaking his fast, Samwell returned to his desk and found another new stack of papers and messages. “Right, then,” he muttered with a sigh.

It had been a week since the tremor. A week during which the number of ravens at the Citadel had quadrupled. And while many of the ravens had arrived on the day of the tremor, more trickled in every day.

Just receiving and cataloging the messages was a nightmare - for no one could be sure which message came from their Westeros and which came from… wherever it was they came from. Despite a week’s worth of study, they were no closer to unravelling the mystery. When they met to discuss the issue, Archmaester Ebrose had suggested that the messages might be genuine, in that the Maesters sending them did so in good faith. But that statement had produced more questions than answers.

Another Archmaester wondered out loud whether there might be more than one Westeros. “Perhaps each choice is a path, and each path a world with its own history, its own stories.” Samwell had had no answer for him then, and he surely didn’t now. But the fact that the idea was not dismissed out of hand spoke to how unprepared the Citadel was. Nothing like this had ever been seriously contemplated.

The consensus of that meeting had been to do what the Citadel always does when it doesn’t have a plan - gather data. So the novices began diligently making lists of messages from each keep, sorting them by origin, date, and author. They were looking for patterns, of course - but even if no pattern emerged, Embrose reasoned that the messages themselves might give valuable clues.

Sam remembered his response to that: “Clues to what?” It was Gormon who had explained.

“Let’s assume, for the moment, that these ravens really do come from some sort of alternate world, parallel to our own, where ravens are used to send messages between keeps and citadel. And that somehow, those ravens left their homes in their worlds and found their way to our citadel - not theirs.”

He had held up his hand, ticking issues with his fingers. “Problem one - we have three or four citadel’s worth of ravens here. We can’t manage them all in the short term, and we can’t feed and care for them all in the long term. We can’t even house them, and letting them wander Oldtown is no solution.”

“Problem two,” he continued, “is that the citadels of some number of other worlds haven’t received their ravens, because those ravens are here. So while our flock is overflowing, theirs is missing. Ravens from the entire continent just up and vanished in transit. They don’t have message traffic to hint at the issue - to them, the ravens just disappeared. Think of the problems that will cause for each of those realms. Think of what it would do to ours.”

“And remember well - while the tremor may have been related to what caused this situation, it’s a week later and we’re still getting duplicate ravens. In these other worlds, keeps and castles are sending ravens to the citadel, receiving no reply - and sending other ravens. They may be making sure the messages get through, they may be asking why the ravens were held back, they may just be checking in - but those ravens are coming here too. We’ve seen the messages, the ones asking if we’re receiving them. _We_ are, but _their_ citadel is not. So we know that whatever happened is still happening.”

“Problem three is related - we don’t know which ravens are _ours_.” Gormon gestured in the direction of the tower, and his frustration was clear. “I have 20 copies of one raven from King’s Landing. Some of those messages were outlandish and impossible - in our world. But other messages were just routine. Births, deaths, and so on. So, for all intents and purposes, we’re getting multiple false messages mixed with one real one, and we have no way to tell which is which. 

Gormon stood, then. The Archmaesters in attendance listened closely as he spoke.

“We must find out where these ravens came from. We must find out how they came to be here, and we must find out how to reverse the process.” He looked at the elders there, and at Samwell and the others invited to the meeting. “And if the process cannot be reversed, we need to make plans for that as well.”

\-----

Sam looked at the list before him. This list showed all the messages retrieved from ravens in the plaza in Oldtown proper. When ravens continued to arrive, the maesters quickly realized that they couldn’t retrieve messages if the ravens never came inside - and with over two thousand ravens in a tower built for just over half that, many of the ravens wouldn’t enter.

So Archmaester Gormon sent novices into the city with barrels of feed. It was a bit of a challenge, but the ravens were well trained - even if it was the maesters of some other Westeros who had done the training. Ravens who allowed their messages to be retrieved got fed, ravens who tried to skip a step did not. It worked in the tower, where incoming ravens knew the routine and followed it precisely. Now, they had found, it worked outdoors as well.

They knew that maesters sent and received ravens while travelling, and surely had methods for handling them from the back of a wagon. But never this many, and never all at once.

 _These novices did well,_ thought Sam. They had kept up with the rush of messages, and managed to give a good summary of each. The dates were listed as well, but Sam ignored these for now. The further the raven had flown, the longer it would have taken to arrive here. He scanned the summaries, but nothing jumped out at him as being important.

His eye caught a message about a shipment of supplies to Dragonstone, and he thought back to the message he had read. The one where he apparently was Maester to the Mad King’s daughter, who had conquered Slaver’s Bay (and renamed it Dragon’s Bay) before sailing to Dragonstone to press her claim to the Iron Throne.

And there she had apparently met the forces of Robb Stark. In that world, the King in the North had been more successful than in Sam’s own, it seemed. And the fact that he kept his old Maester Luwin as Grand Maester suggested that other events in the North had gone differently as well.

Sam spent a few minutes looking at the stack of messages retrieved in Oldtown - not reading them, just looking at the pile with a thoughtful expression. _I wonder…_

“It couldn’t be that simple, could it?” he asked himself, out loud. Smiling, he decided on his experiment.

Setting the messages to one side, he opened his desk and pulled out a blank piece of message parchment. The thin sheet was very delicate - it had to be, for a raven had to bear its weight in flight. Taking his quill, he began to write.

_To the Maester of Dragonstone, the Citadel humbly requests that you provide a report in the following manner: First, identify yourself by name, origin, and tenure in office. Second, indicate any problems with raven traffic for the month prior to receiving this message. Third, choose a number with seven digits. Reveal this number to no one outside the Citadel, but include it in every future message to the Citadel._

Sam paused, reading what he had written. If he got such a message, what would he do? I’d _probably tell the Archmaester that novices were messing about again,_ He thought. So how to get a response without raising concerns? After a moment, Sam continued his message.

_Novices are studying our ravens, to see if their patterns of travel might be made more efficient through training or other means. Your response to this request will aid them in their learnings. In that light, we ask that you send your response with the exact same raven that brought this message to you, and that you send a response with each such raven that arrives bearing this message. Respectfully submitted, Maester Gill of the Citadel._

Sam looked over the message again. He smiled at Gilly’s name on the parchment. She was no maester, of course, and whomever the message found at Dragonstone wouldn’t care. But if Sam had received a message like that, with that name, he would have noticed. _Which is what I’m betting on, of course,_ thought Sam.

A knock interrupted his thoughts, and he looked up to see a novice at his door. It was one of the older boys, one who could have been a maester by now if he had applied himself earlier. He was on the right track, and would soon have his chain, but it had taken some time - and a lot of growing up - before he set himself straight.

“I have another message for you, Maester,” the boy said, quietly.

Sam nodded for him to approach, and took the slip of parchment. “Thank you, Tomas." Then, seeing how tired the boy looked, Sam continued. "You worked through the night again, didn't you? Go get some rest, you’ve earned it.”

Tomas smiled in thanks, then left the office. He was almost in the hallway before he tiredly turned back and closed the door.

Sam shook his head, smiling - before a yawn caught him unawares. _We’re all a bit ragged, these days._ That ended when he saw the message, and he sat forward in his chair.

_Hail and Greetings to the Maesters of the Citadel from Dragonstone. I have the honor of being Maester Samwell Tarly, son of Lord Randyll Tarly of Horn Hill, and have served as Maester of this keep for some 10 months. Your raven was the first word we received from the citadel in three weeks, though raven traffic from other keeps has continued as normal. If it please you, I would choose 1357642 as my number. It is possible that whatever your novices have done to the tower of ravens is causing all sorts of problems, and that it would be well for Archmaester Gormon to kindly ask them to knock it off._

Sam smiled at that, as he continued the message. There was a time when he would not have had the confidence to smart off at a maester of the Citadel.

 _If there is some other problem impacting the ravens, then please advise us as to how we might be of assistance. As I am sure you would agree, continued dialog on this matter could prove fruitful for all of us._ _Please convey my greetings to little Sam, as well as to his mother. Respectfully submitted, Maester Samwell of Dragonstone._

“Well, that’s a clear message.” muttered Sam, as he looked at the parchment. As he set it down, he saw the message that had been on his desk before Tomas arrived.

The request for information from Dragonstone.

The request that earned a reply from a version of himself.

The request he hadn’t sent yet.

Sam’s eyes grew wide in shock. “It’s not just the ravens. Time is broken too.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously, as the situation develops, more tags will be added. 
> 
> I found myself reading two excellent works by the same author, each extensive and lavishly detailed, rivalling the books. And each diverging from canon at one point, before exploring the changes to the world. I made the mistake, however, of reading these works concurrently - and I got my chapters mixed up. So when Lord Tyrion refers to his wife Sansa and Margaery walks in, well - imagine my confusion. 
> 
> Now multiply times a hundred, and you see the situation confronting Samwell.
> 
> Feedback is, as always, welcome.


End file.
